The importance of the work of retro gamers and fan communities within the field of videogame preservation has been acknowledged and the need for institutional collaboration with these communities has also been recognised. There are, however, minimal examples of how museums might realize this opportunity. This thesis examines the curation of a local history of Australian videogames for the era of the microcomputer and, in the process, provides an example of how museums can effectively engage with online communities to document and display videogames.

Local game histories form a crucial component of a response to the call for a critical historiography of videogames. Notable scholars to have proposed the need for such a historiography include Raiford Guins, Henry Lowood, Jakko Suominen and Melanie Swalwell. Responding to this need, I undertake research on an important chapter of Australian videogame history. In addressing the challenges of curating videogames, which are understood as both ‘artefacts and experiences’, I explore what museums can learn from the practices of retro game communities. Online retro gamer communities have created extensive archives of early microcomputer games, developing systems and procedures for their preservation and documentation. Through examination of retro gamer sites and other player made artefacts, I develop a novel argument for the importance of player memory in capturing how people experienced videogames and engaged with broader game culture. The importance of personal memories for videogame history is further explored in the case study of the Popular Memory Archive (PMA). The PMA website is designed as both exhibition and archive with the intent of engaging online communities in sharing their recollections of 1980s games. Through an analysis of the PMA I examine new ways of documenting and displaying born digital work.

This thesis contributes to broader questions about the display and collection of digital heritage by museums confronted with the challenges of a future in which screen culture will no longer leave material traces. Born digital artefacts need to be recorded and represented through the documentation of their systems and the experiences they afford their users. Through an analysis of retro gamer sites and the PMA, I present an exemplar for future collaborative practice between museums and online communities for the display and documentation of born digital artefacts.

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